


Candyworks

by CalamityCain



Category: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Genre: Future Fic, Other, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:26:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityCain/pseuds/CalamityCain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie grows up and inherits the factory. Things are running as smoothly as ever - with the exception of a few small glitches...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Assembly

Sharp silver clockwork cogs made a _whoosh-whoosh_ sound in Charlie’s ears. He watched, mesmerized, as the faultless machines spun fine threads of sugar into gleaming lollipops. After all these years, it still held him in thrall.

He plucked a finished stick from the assembly line to taste it. A brief fizzle occurred – then a hundred raspberry-flavoured tingles shot through his nose and hair like heatless sparks. The sticky-sweet layer on his tongue dissolved into nothing, leaving only a pleasant aftermath in his mouth.

A thousand lollipops in green and pink and amber, marching into shiny wrappers. The factory never stopped.

The world was quiet here. In the silence he recalled vividly the tiny pattering footsteps echoing down the corridor, and the mocking melodic rhymes that followed. But the Oompa Loompas were gone, and old Willy was dead. No more silly made-up songs echoed through the tunnels. There was nothing left of the silly effervescent joy since the chocolatier’s demise five years ago. The factory was hushed, the shell of a slumbering wonderland.

Not that this affected the quality of the products shipped worldwide everyday, bearing the famous swirling stamp. Every item down to the last gumdrop was as exquisite as it had ever been at the height of Mr Wonka’s career. The machines were in superb working order, even with hardly a touch of maintenance. As heir to the factory, Charlie had had a team of technicians and ‘cleaner-uppers’ descend upon the place once every two months. But he soon found out that the factory took care of itself – often, he suspected, when his back was turned. Gears clotted with caramel one day would be squeaky clean the next. Silently, industriously, things went on without a hitch.

It almost made him feel like an intruder.

Sighing, rubbing the day-old fuzz on his jaw, Charlie Bucket turned and strode down the silent passageway that led to the exit gates of Wonka & Bucket’s Amazing Chocolate Factory.


	2. The Chocolate Room

The breeze from a distant window sent a rustle through the green liquorice grass. Nearby the chocolate waterfall churned and bubbled steadily away, tumbling into a bottomless lake of gleaming liquid fudge. Overhead, giant see-through plastic pipes sucked up the dark brown substance and carried it to the fudge chamber. The jelly apple trees sagged with sweet, ripe fruit long untouched by little hands; a few lay rotting on the ground, dissolving into brownish sticky sweetness.

A ray of artificial sunlight brightened, baking the butterscotch pavement into golden bricks. The first time Charlie had tasted them, he had nearly swooned in ecstasy over the crumbly golden warmth filling his mouth and throat and rumbling stomach. Lining the pavement were glazed sugar blossoms that melted ever so slightly in the mild heat. Where the liquid droplets touched the ground, there sprang new crystalline buds.

Something splashed in the chocolate lake. There was a strange gurgle, and then – 

– a plump, ripe glazed pumpkin burst, piercing the silence like a gunshot. Globs of gelatinous pulp spattered over a cluster of crème mushrooms nearby.

The pipes halted for a second. Their faint whirring came to a halt.

The brief moment was pregnant with stillness, save for the babble of the waterfall.

It seemed the silence would last forever. But then, with a last whir, the pipes unassumingly resumed their business. The endless reserves of silken chocolate were drained and refilled, again and again. Another jelly apple fell. The waterfall churned. The lake bubbled once and was still.


End file.
